Gunlaw

Gunlaw 22

Chapter 13 – Fifty Years Ago

Sally went with Ronson and the men from the Broken Horn. Gorren Blackhoof she knew. Not many taur came out as far as Sweet Water, so everyone knew Gorren. Whether they traded with him – gold and tools for hides and iron – or watched him drink whiskey from a bucket in the Horn, or just saw him clanking down Main, bellowing hulloos. He didn't go with the girls at the Horn or up at Miss Grace's, and for that she was grateful.

Ed came too, his range coat tight against the cold, a plains hat to cover his baldness. He brought his shotgun from behind the bar and told Johnny to shut the place up. The lone customer would come back with his gold tomorrow night.

Ed brought the lantern that hung below the Horn's faded sign. The youngest of the free-fighters, Purbright, filched a second from the street-pole where Mayor Tully had them hung. And the crowd of them followed the stockhand in his bloody smock, gathering night strays as they went. Even Rallon Sour staggered on after them from the alley where he'd lain as dead all the long day, and some domen pup in off the Dry scampered behind in the shadow - as if that would fool hunska eyes.

The stockyards at dawn were quiet enough, just the shuffling of steers and the slow grind of their jaws around feed from the racks. Now though, as Sally approached amid the small band from the Horn, the steers shared the tension, rattling the yard fence and letting loose with querulous lowing.

The taur lay in the trail by the wall of Hanja's barn. Mostly. Ropes of gut reached out across almost to the stockyard, dust-caked and dog-chewed. His arm, thick as Sally's waist, rested against the horse trough further along the trail, past the barn, a white knob of bone glistening in the gore. The stink of him was no worse than the yards or the butchers, but it made her nose twitch and her stomach roil.

Ed moved in quick enough, Ralon shuffling after to stand with him above the ruined taur, looking down. Ronson stayed with the others, watching the rooftops, the dark windows. Satisfied he advanced. The taur's iron charms lay scattered, a few still about his neck on long strips of hide, plain disks of dark metal, each set with a single deep-stamped rune. One for each of the Three and more beside.

"Made a helluva mess of him," Ed muttered, a slow shake of his head.

"Woulda took a scythe to hack off an arm like that." Rallon sounded like he needed a drink.

"Sect." Ronson lifted one of Gorren's horns with the tip of his boot, turning the taur's head to reveal a slashed throat.

The trio of free-fighters stood their ground, the kid, James Purbright, the seasoned hand, Eldreth Larrs, and old Henry Walker with eyes meaner than sin. Sally would not be turning her back on them. They might be new in town but none of them were new. Not even the kid.

"Sect you say?" Walker pursed his lips and wiped a palm on his shabby waistcoat.

"Don't get sect out here, 'slinger." Larrs ran a finger along his pale scar, from eye to mouth, his other hand always on his gun.

"Not in Sweet Water." Purbright, the youngster, drawling out the 'sweet' as if tasting it.

Ronson went down on one knee beside Gorren's corpse and worried at something dark, clutched between thick fingers. Unable to free it he took the broadknife from his belt.

"Don't— Sally hadn't meant to speak but the word escaped her. Despite the crimson butchery, more shocking with each moment of the rising sun, the idea of taking a knife to Gorren's fingers horrified her.

But Ronson set his knife to the trapped object and with difficulty carved part of it away. He stood, holding it out, a gleaming piece of black and chitinous armour-plate covered half his palm.

"Sect." He let the piece fall.

"But we don't get sect in Sweet Water." Ed kept his gaze on the dead taur, unable to look away.

"We do now." Ronson slid his broadknife back into its sheath. He fished out his pocket watch, a slim one on a heavy gold chain. "Just after six."

Sally blinked at that. Who cared what the hour was.

"And why Gorren?" Ed wanted to know. "What was he even doing out here?" Ed had the look of a rabbit before it's taken, eyes too wide, tense enough that something might snap. Sally wished his white fingers a little further from the triggers of that shotgun.

"Might not have been after the taur." Young Purbright let his gaze wander, a look of mild distaste on him as if nothing could please him. For an instant Sally saw the town in flames, every building burning. Purbright's thought, escaping him, loud as another man's lust. His lip curled.

"Not much else out here," Rallon said. The old man looked ready for another drink, unwilling to have the morning sun find him sobering. He moved back toward the group, feet unsteady, the stink of him worse than corpse or stock.

"Barn, stockyards." Ed nodded. "The crip shack." A careless gesture with the shotgun toward the structure. "That's all. What else could a sect be hunting for out here?"

Sally hugged herself against the dawn cold. She'd looked into the blackness of that hut, the crip shack, but just the once. It told her more about humans than she wanted to know. If you see men work together to build a home, to defend their family, see the bonds that grow between them after short days in each other's company, you might think they had lessons about the pack to teach a domen. One look in that shack though and you would know they stand further apart than any hunska. No hunska mother would put aside her child before the time of change. There comes a time for mother and offspring, as ska fades, to walk different paths, but not before they're weaned and clawed, no matter how poorly made they might be.

"Gorren wasn't just a merchant," Ronson said. "He never told it himself, but I had it from a taur warrior on the train out of Two-Eleven that Gorren made magic for the herd."

"You think he came out here to make magic with the ladies?" Larrs nodded to the stock.

"They're steers, Mister Larrs," Ronson said, no motion in the man.

"Now's not the time to bicker over cattle, gentlemen." Henry Walker, round hat in one hand, a long and narrow knife in the other. He crouched in the road, the thin grey straggles of his hair across his forhead. He lifted one of Gorren's charms on the end of his blade. The morning light coaxed dull gleams from the disc as it rotated on its thong, the Second Rune stamped across it for The One of the Taur. He brought the talisman in for a closer look, and as he did it stopped turning, like a loadstone in caught in the earth's invisible current. The disc froze and Walker's face froze with it, caught in an ugly moment. A heartbeat, another, and with a snarl he tossed it aside. "Filthy mino tricks." The knife vanished into his sleeve, so fast Sally only just caught a glimpse.

"So did Gorren come looking for the sect, or did the sect come looking for Gorren?" Ronson asked. The frown and the early light combined to show his age.

Or maybe they both came looking for something else. Sally let the thought keep on her tongue. The glanced at the barn, at the stockyard, and let her eyes settle on the crip shack.

<2nd half of this chapter on Thursday>

<feedback always welcome!>